'The Walking Dead' Season 4 Photo: Michonne On a Horse Continues Being Everything

For all the new plotlines teased of 'The Walking Dead' season 4 in the recent Comic-Con 2013 trailer, interviews with cast and crew, and even season 4 artwork, perhaps no visual proved so well-received as the simple iconography of badass Michonne (Danai Gurira) riding a horse. To commemorate this simple pleasure of the upcoming run, AMC has released a brand-new photo and an in-depth discussion with the star over her new equestrian friend, "Flame."

Much like 'Falling Skies' introduced into its own post-apocalyptic narrative this past season, the new season of 'The Walking Dead' will see Michonne, and possibly others, taking to horseback in a means to better adjust to dwindling resources. In particular, 'Walking Dead' producer Gale Ann Hurd spoke to Entertainment Weekly of the simplistic, yet fan-favored visual:

One of the most compelling images is Michonne finding a new and possibly a lot more reliable type of transportation. With gas at a premium, with the fact that vehicles break down, I think we would return to the days of horseback riding and you can graze them as you go in a place like Georgia. You don’t have to carry food for them. They feed themselves, so to speak.

It goes along with the new approach this season of sustainability. With a horse, you can go through the woods. You can get around obstacles. You can’t do that in a vehicle. If a tree falls and blocks the road, you can’t go through the forest. You’re not going to make it through. It’s actually much more of a useful choice. Not only that, but Michonne looks so badass on it.

Of course, we all remember what happened the last time we saw one of the core survivors attempt to navigate a walker-laden landscape via horseback, but we'd trust Michonne to handle herself far more than Rick Grimes at the outset of the apocalypse.

"I totally get why Michonne would love it," says Gurira. "It’s such a freeing experience, it’s you and this one creature and you don’t have to talk. And it does what you say, but it’s also this old being and it gets you where you need to go. It has this perfect function. It’s just a fantastic animal. So, I so get why she would jump on it and feel free. It’s like going into her man cave.“